Moto blog

Honda won the second day of competition with Team HRC’s Sam Sunderland claiming victory in the first special stage of this year’s Dakar. Sunderland has had a frustrating time at previous Dakars, dropping out after three days of racing in 2012 and withdrawing a month before last year’s event due to fracturing both his wrists. Today, however, Sunderland made a grand entrance into the club of elite riders by brilliantly winning his first special stage of this year’s Dakar. Having started well behind his teammate, Joan Barreda, the 23-year old Brit superbly overtook Michael Metge and Juan Pedrero on the first part of the route.

KTM will enter the three-rider lineup of Sandro Cortese, Arthur Sissis and Danny Kent in the 2012 Moto3 class in the manufacturer’s return to Grand Prix road racing. The Austrian manufacturer last competed in the World Championship in 2009, racing in the 125cc Grand Prix class. KTM’s return comes as the 125cc class is being replaced with the new 250cc Moto3 class.

In July we broke the news of a new racebike from KTM, the RC390, which is to be used in a spec racing series in 2014. Now, we’ve received leaked information from KTM Duke 390 forum member sandy_mary with technical specs about the road going production model. Pulled from a secret page on KTM’s Canadian website, according to sandy_mary, here’s what we’ve found out.